My stepfather wants me to look for a car for him on the internet. He knows what he wants, he just wants to get the best deal. He is scared of computers. So I’ve been endentured to oblige his request.
The thing is, I’ve only heard of used cars being sold on the internet. He wants a brand spanking new Oldsmobile Aurora. Wants to lease it. Any clues? I’m heading over to http://www.oldsmobile.com right now, but are there any other sites I should be looking at?
http://www.edmunds.com is best for researching and getting an idea of what price you should pay.
http://www.carsdirect.com will give you an actual price, and you can buy the car too if you want.
Priceline.dom name your own price…
auto.priceline.com
Carpoint. Very thourough pricing information and model comparisons.
carpoint.msn.com
Please ignore my typing skills (or blatant lack thereof…)
My wife and I just bought a car a few months ago. We used http://www.carsdirect.com to get a price quote, which was well below what the dealer wanted to offer. Then we just took this quote back to the dealer and let them know that we would be buying the car, either from them, or from carsdirect, but in no case would we pay more than what the web was offering. As soon as they discovered that we were serious they caved and we left that day with the car we wanted.
Having said that, I should also relate that a friend of mine went to buy a BMW and tried the same thing. They just laughed at him and said “if you don’t buy this car from us, we’ll just sell it to someone else who is willing to pay!” I suppose they can get away with that :rolleyes: being BMW and all…
Righto… BMW and Mercedes and the like WILL NOT give you a lower price. Actually, I looked up the BMW on carsdirect and it was the MSRP anyway…
However, when my girlfriend got a Nissan Sentra it worked like a charm, bringing in the printed out carsdirect.com quote… she still paid $100 more than carsdirect, but it was worth it to get the car from the dealer and actually drive it and all.
We’ve been looking at Honda Odysseys. Apparently this is a very popular model (why, I don’t know – I’m not a big fan of minivans) and the car sites we’ve checked out don’t even list it. They just give a map of nearby Honda dealers.
If you’re looking for any in-demand model, you’re going to wind up at a dealer, and you’re going to pay the price the dealer wants. No dealer is going to sell a car over the Internet than he can get a higher price for in the showroom.